Dark Academia Books to Read With Your Book Club This Back-to-School Season

The New York Public Library has been doing some cool things this summer, and not just for kids. There was the Big Summer Book Club, which just met yesterday at the Delacorte Theater (where they have Shakespeare in the Park, IYKYK) to discuss the very NYC-centric The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin. I love the idea of a huge book club meeting in a park, and I hope to see more of it. Now, since we are in the midst of back-to-school season and fall is right around the corner, I thought it was the perfect time to plan to read some of the most recent dark academia. Just last month, I mentioned the queer, 1920s mystery Spoiled Milk by Avery Curran in a list of great lit fic to read with your club, and this week, I’ve got 1950s witches (courtesy of Alice Hoffman), deadly tarot, and more. There’s lots of romantasy, a little drug dealing, and the final book in a bestselling trilogy as a bonus. The Witches of Cambridge by Alice HoffmanHoffman knows a thing or two when it comes to writing about witches, and her latest witchy work involves a secret society. It’s 1950s Cambridge, Massachusetts, when two young women who are polar opposites—super bright Ava and wild and rich Lauren—meet each other...